INDISCREET, in a sample of its advertising tag lines made no secret of intent and content: “Together…in Ingrid’s first comedy and Cary’s best. Gay and glittering goings-on of a glamorous actress and an amorous diplomat…two oh-so-sophisticated people who tried to lie to each other. Deluxe and delightful.”  Laid on a wee, perhaps, but that’s how it was done back in the summer of 1958, and while the first line fudges facts for the sake of expected publicity and hopeful profit, the rest is close to the mark. Pairing Ingrid Bergman and Cary Grant again, a dozen years after their memorable steam-up in Notorious, made for smooth, smart, surefire spark-sharing in a polished production, geared for grownups with a yen for 100 minutes of sophistication. The actors, director and script finessed one of the year’s better comedies, and $9,800,000 from audiences made it one of the more successful, 15th place at the box office. *

After 1957’s dud Kiss Them For Me (with Grant), Stanley Donen produced as well as directed for the rest of his career, and he does well in both aspects with this $1,500,000 affair, posh without being overladen with frills. Norman Krasna (Mr. & Mrs. Smith, Princess O’Rourke, White Christmas) adapted his play Kind Sir into screenplay form.

Theater actress ‘Anna Kalman’ (Bergman, 42) lives in London, is single, and bored with the uninteresting men in her otherwise successful life. Chance brings American economist and newly appointed NATO diplomat ‘Philip Adams’ (Grant, 53) to her literal front door and funk is readily replaced by fancy, fascination and frolic. The ‘fly in the buttermilk’? Philip is married. Unhappily, yes, and available for challenging amour, albeit with boundaries that the plot eventually reveals. The windup in the last act takes some air out of mostly breezy sailing, and the plot gimmick (Philip’s reasons behind his ‘partial’ honesty) are flimsy, but the meshed performances from the star-powered leads are so appealing that the show easily glides over the gossamer design. Bergman, back in the public forgiveness fold after Anastasia. glows in light material with the same deft, unmannered touch she’d heretofore mastered in dramas, and an assured Grant is in stellar form: was there a more handsome 53-year-old guy anywhere? The dialogue is keen without calling attention to itself, and the highlight is a delightful dance segment at a banquet where Grant gets to displays the nimbleness, grace and self-kidding gymnastic elasticity he possessed with the facility to somehow make it all look easy. Frivolous and fun.

“Nothing makes a man feel more ridiculous than being sentimental when a woman is not.”

With enjoyable support from Cecil Parker, Phyllis Calvert, David Kossoff and Megs Jenkins.

* Per the flacks fibs—it wasn’t “Ingrid’s first comedy“. Of Bergman’s pre-Hollywood, Swedish-made pictures, her first speaking role came in a 1935 lark, The Count Of The Old Town, and three years later, a star now, she did another, 1938’s Dollar. After Indiscreet it was eleven years before she scored smiles again in 1969’s hit Cactus Flower. And no, it isn’t “Cary’s best”, but is certainly a worthy entry in his long roll call of winners. Besides this truffle, ’58 gave Ingrid The Inn Of The Sixth Happiness, a solid fact-based drama at #10, and Mr. Grant had Houseboat, a rom-com tagging #12, his second go-round with Sophia Loren (following The Pride And The Passion), the most impressive foreign import of the decade, exciting fans just as Miss Bergman had bewitched the 40’s.

Good company that year—Auntie Mame, No Time For Sergeants, Rally Round The Flags Boys!, The Geisha Boy, Teacher’s Pet, Damn Yankees, Bell Book And Candle, The Perfect Furlough, The Tunnel Of Love.